Juan Miguel Luz, '80

1980 grad is an influential Lasallian educator and leader in the Philippines

Juan Miguel M. Luz, '80

Asian Institute of Management (AIM)

Juan Miguel (Mike) Luz rejoined AIM as Associate Dean of the Institute’s Center for Development Management (CDM) in September 2009. He handled courses on development management, negotiations and management communication in AIM’s degree and non-degree programs from 1997 to 2005. He was also Managing Director of the Ramon V. del Rosario, Sr.-AIM Center for Corporate Responsibility from 1999 to 2002.

Public Office

Professor Luz has held various positions in public office. From 2002 to 2006, he served as Undersecretary of the Department of Education, in charge of Finance and Administration.

NGO Work

After DepED, Professor Luz served a term as president of the International Institute for Rural Reconstruction (2006 – 2008), an international NGO with programs in Southeast Asia and East Africa. Professor Luz currently sits on a number of nonprofit organization boards including the Knowledge Channel, the Foundation for Philippine Environment, the Philippine Center for Population and Development, the Assisi Development Foundation, the Bato Balani Foundation, and the Philippine Business for Education. He is also a member of the Human Development Network-Philippines and the Galing Pook Foundation. Luz chairs the Executive Committee of the Affiliated Network for Social Accountability (East Asia and the Pacific) which is funded by the World Bank Institute.

Research Interests

Professor Luz’s research interests are in social policy, development management and political development. He has authored books on the strategic management of non-governmental organizations, corporate-community relations and education management. Most notably, his book Brigada Eskwela exposes Philippine education's perennial problems and reveals their solutions.

Academic History

Bachelor of Liberal Arts Major in the Integral Program, Minor in Political Science (Magna cum laude), Saint Mary’s College of California (1980)Masters in Public Administration Degree, Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government (1992)Teaching Assistant for the Public Enterprise Workshop (PEW) for Senior Government Officials, an executive program on financial and performance evaluation, project appraisal and privatization, run by the Harvard Institute for International Development (1992)Research Fellow on the project Human Survival Crisis - The Ethics and Politics of Humanitarian Intervention by the Harvard Center for Population and Development, graduate school years.

When asked why he chose to enter Saint Mary's, Luz said one of the draws was the Integral Program, which is founded on the great books of the Western world. Under this Lasallian program. he was immersed in four solid years of reading canonical books, with their core being philosophy and the classics. It would no longer then be a wonder that Luz turned out to be writer himself, with a vast knowledge on philosophy and the sciences and an eye for analyzing and solving Philippine education problems.

- Jen Balboa,editor Rektikano Magazine

Lessons Our Father Taught Us Here is an inspring articles by Dean Luz excerpted from his commencement address at the recent graduation of the Institutes of Education and Architecture and Fine Arts in Far Eastern University.